Crimes of Passion

by Toni Anderson

  Rebecca padded into the kitchen without turning on the light. Finding her way in the dark had always been like a game, and besides, sudden bright light hurt her eyes. The dim light in the refrigerator was no problem, however, and she quickly found the bottle of thick pink liquid on the door shelf.

  She had shut the door and was turning away, heading for the kitchen drawer for a spoon, when the glare of headlights lit up the room and flashed around the walls. She swung to stare out the back window. There was a car hurtling along the log road leading down to the pond. It bounced and swayed with its speed, for the headlights made wild zigzag sweeps among the trees. She could hear the whining roar of its engine. It rounded a curve, heading downhill, and everything grew dark again. A moment later, the noise of the car died abruptly as the motor was turned off.

  Some couple was certainly in a hurry to go parking, Rebecca thought. Other than deer-spotting, the illegal hunting of deer by spotlight, parking was about the only reason anybody ever went down the log road at night.

  At the sound of another moan, she swung away, moving toward her sister’s bedroom.

  “Beth?”

  She pushed open the bedroom door a crack but could see nothing in the darkness. When there was no answer, she took a step inside, then another.

  “Bethie?”

  The only sound was labored breathing, and it seemed to be coming from the floor just in front of her. Frowning, she went toward it.

  Her bare foot touched something wet and warm on the floor. A shiver moved through her. There was something wrong, something terribly wrong. Holding her hands out in front of her to feel her way, Rebecca moved around to the bedside table and switched on the small lamp. She looked down and a strangled gasp caught in her throat.

  Beth lay in a pool of blood. Her cotton nightgown was soaked from the waist down, and her hands were stained. She was drawn up into a fetal position, her eyes closed, her blue lips parted with her shallow breathing. Just in front of her, as if it had fallen from her fingers, was an old-fashioned fountain pen sticky with blood.

  The next twenty-four hours were a confusion of flashing lights and hospital smells, grave voices and screams. Beth died from the loss of blood at four in the morning. Their mother immediately collapsed and had to be admitted to the hospital under sedation and with careful monitoring of her heart. Margaret went to pieces, overcome with guilt for all the things she had said to her older sister, afraid that if she had not said them, Beth might have tried to get help in time. The tranquilizers their family doctor prescribed turned her into a zombie barely able to function, much less make decisions.

  It was Rebecca who planned the funeral and chose the casket, the dress Beth would wear, and the family spray of pink roses and carnations. It was she who called relatives and spoke to the pastor of their church about the service and the music. Torn between staying with her mother at the hospital and sitting at the funeral home as the representative of Beth’s family while relatives and friends filed in to pay their respects, she shuttled back and forth between the two until she was exhausted.

  It was also Rebecca who talked to the two FBI men when they came to the hospital.

  They showed her their identification, apologized for the intrusion on her grief, and asked politely if she would answer a few questions. Had she and the other members of her family been out of the house the night before? Wasn’t it unusual for them all to be home on a Saturday night? What time did they ordinarily go to bed? What time had they retired the night before? Had they seen or heard anything unusual?

  It was a good thing, Rebecca thought, that she was so tired, so drained of emotion; otherwise she would have been too nervous to talk. As it was, her replies were brief and matter-of-fact. It occurred to her to ask what it was all about, but she wasn’t sure if people being questioned by the FBI were allowed to put questions to them in return or if the solemn men in their dark suits would bother to answer a fifteen-year-old girl.

  In any case, she had nothing to tell them. There had been that car on the log road, but no one could say it was unusual, exactly, to see one there. More than that, she could not go into how and why she had seen it without explaining how she had found Beth and why her sister had died. That last information was being carefully suppressed. Their family doctor, the man who had treated their mother for years, had, in a protective gesture, put down the cause of Beth’s death as massive hemorrhaging from a perforated bowel. For their mother’s sake, nothing must jeopardize that story. Mrs. Benson did not know of the botched, self-administered abortion, had not seen Beth’s condition. Rebecca and Margaret had removed the bloodstained pen and thrown a quilt over their sister before calling their mother that night. Anyway, the car at the pond could hardly matter. What was important was that Beth, beautiful, fun-loving Beth, was dead, and their mother could be dying.

  It was not until later that evening at the funeral home that she learned of the death of that other young woman, the brassy and militant civil rights worker. She had been killed when the truck in which she was riding with a pair of black men was fired on by a bunch of white hoodlums in a dark-colored, late-model car. The white men had sped away, leading the town police on a high-speed chase before losing them somewhere out in the country south of town.

  Beth and the civil rights worker lay in state in adjoining rooms at the funeral home, two young women tragically dead. Beth would be buried the next morning; the other girl’s parents, in town overnight, would be taking her back that same day to Massachusetts for burial.

  There was a constant stream of visitors. Most of them moved from one viewing room to the other in morbid, shifting curiosity. Hour after hour Rebecca endured the smell of the funeral flowers, the platitudes and attempts at comfort, and the inquiries about her mother’s condition. Margaret sat for a while, then let dear, dependable Boots take her away. She couldn’t stand it, she said. She just couldn’t.

  It was late when Edison came. He walked into the viewing room and stood staring down at Beth in her casket. He was still for so long, and there were so many muttered comments and remnants of gossip running around the room, so many stares, that finally Rebecca rose to her feet and walked to stand beside him as a gesture of support.

  He turned his head to look at her, and tears glistened in his eyes. His voice was soft and tight when he spoke.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her,” he said.

  THREE

  NOEL STAULET CAME TO A HALT JUST before he reached the French doors that led out onto the back gallery. Through the rectangular glass panes he could see Riva and Dante Romoli seated at one of the glass-topped tables. The hat Riva had been wearing had been tossed aside on the seat of a chair. The reflection of the afternoon sun on the bricks of the terrace gave a delicate sheen to one side of her face. She had kicked off her cream-colored shoes and sat with one leg curled under her. She and Romoli were sharing a newspaper while drinking their after-luncheon coffee from eggshell-thin china cups.

  The cups they were using were from the set Noel’s great-grandmother had bought in France on her honeymoon tour. Still, it was not that solecism that made him frown and slowly clench his hands into fists. It was the ease between the two of them, the ease of a couple who knew each other so well that neither appearances nor silences mattered.

  Never in all the years Noel had known Riva had she ever been so relaxed with him. Never had he seen her stretch with so much disregard for the way her dress clung to her slender shape or smother a yawn with such unconcern for how she looked with her soft lips parted and her eyelids heavy and half-closed. With him, she was always on guard, always controlled.

  He could hardly complain; he was the same with her. He kept a tight rein on every word, gesture, and glance when he was with her. It was a habit stretching back more years than he cared to consider, one so stringent he wasn’t sure he could break it if he tried. It had been hard won, that control, manufactured from sleepless nights, gut-straining effort, and iron will. It had been brought into being almost tw
enty-five years ago to cover a multitude of emotions he had no business feeling: rage that his father had so quickly replaced his dead mother, shame that he had chosen a girl young enough to be his daughter, and pity for the girl so obviously out of her depth. There had also been rampant curiosity about the nature of the physical relationship between her and his father, plus envy for the right the older man had to take Riva into his bed and Noel’s own sheerest lust for her beautiful body. The last was most important, or had been until he had crowned his post-adolescent stupidity by adding love to the list.

  He had been in love with his stepmother. God, the guilt of it, and the burning, secret joy. It could not last, of course. It had almost been a relief when his father had put an end to it. Still, there had been nothing like it since. Nothing.

  A musical yet strident ringing broke the quiet as the old-fashioned bell was twisted at the front door, which was down the hall behind him. Noel had already alerted Abraham, Bonne Vie’s butler of forty years standing, that there would be guests. The elderly man moved with stately calm to answer the summons that meant Constance and the children had arrived. Noel had meant to warn Riva as well. Now it was too late.

  Noel turned to watch through the open doorway as his ex-wife directed the pair of houseboys who were bringing in the luggage, pointing out the pieces she wanted from the mountain of matched Vuitton being unloaded from Noel’s Mercedes, which was parked before the door. He should, he thought, have taken the plantation van to the airport. That was the only vehicle on the place roomy enough to hold the belongings Constance felt necessary for her comfort on even the shortest visit.

  She had allowed him to transport most of the Vuittons, but not the children. There had been room for Pietro at least after everything was loaded, but she had refused to let the boy leave her side, insisting that both he and Coralie ride in the taxi with her. Apparently, Noel thought, he was a father who could not be trusted with his own children, though Constance was supposed to be bringing them to visit so they would not forget him. His anger over her unreasonableness pleased her immensely. She was Italian, and more than that, of Sicilian noble family, the former Lady Constance di Lampadusa. She did not have to be logical, nor did she see anything wrong with petty revenge.

  The children, with nine-year-old Coralie in the lead, were climbing out of the taxi and stumbling up the steps. Noel went to meet them. As he passed Abraham, Noel nodded toward the back gallery. The old man inclined his head in grave assent before moving off down the hall to inform the mistress of the house that she had company.

  Pietro, not quite seven, was tired and out of sorts with jet lag and inclined to whine. He missed his nurse, who at the last minute had not been able to bring herself to get on a plane going over the ocean. Constance was unused to coping with the children by herself. In an effort to keep her young son quiet, she had plied him with chocolate, the evidence of which was still smeared on his face. With his mop of black curls, huge black eyes, and woebegone expression, he looked like a poster child for Save the Children.

  Coralie, in contrast, was silent, staring around her with wide-eyed self-possession. The dress she wore was from Milan’s most famous children’s designer, her shoes were handmade from a last that was changed every three months, and the doll case she carried was of glove leather lined with silk and engraved with her initials in gold. She looked like a misplaced princess but was too pale and withdrawn to be healthy.

  Noel walked out the front door. He knelt to hug his daughter, then reached to pull his six-year-old son against him. He felt chocolate rub off on his shirt collar, but he didn’t care. His children’s bodies against him were warm and welcome, bringing a tightness to his throat. It had been a long time.

  “Welcome to Bonne Vie,” he said, his voice soft. Then he picked up Pietro and took his daughter’s hand. He stood back to allow his ex-wife to precede him, then moved with the two children into the house.

  He stopped inside the door. Riva was approaching from the direction of the back gallery. She had retrieved her shoes and reapplied her makeup and was once more serenely composed. Dante lagged half a step behind her. The look in the Cajun’s dark eyes was wary, as if he expected trouble.

  “Constance, what a nice surprise,” Riva said, extending her hand.

  Constance barely touched the other woman’s fingers. “I am sure it is more of a shock than a surprise. You must forgive me for not warning you. I was afraid Noel would say I should not come.”

  The words were correct, but the manner was proud, just short of offensiveness. It was one of the things that had first attracted Noel to the woman who had become his wife, that magnificent disdain for what other people thought.

  There were also her looks, of course. She had been so different from Riva, with an attraction that had a medieval quality like some dark, subtly erotic portrait from the time of the Borgias. Her gray eyes tilted up at the corners and her nose was straight and aquiline. Her bottom lip was full and curving, though the top one had a willful thinness. She wore her long hair parted in the center and drawn back into a thick ballet dancer’s knot on the nape of her neck. Constance was often exasperated with her body, saying she looked like an earth mother, too fecund for high fashion. She affected instead a look both barbarian and bohemian, the last a deliberate concession to her chosen career as a designer of jewelry that was more artwork than ornament. For the plane trip she had worn a dress of natural wool and linen with a fringed hem, along with crude gold jewelry with an Etruscan look and an accent scarf thrown over one shoulder. She was a woman with the kind of bodily opulence and fiery temperament that most men seemed to enjoy. Noel had once thought he might become lost in it. It was not her fault that he had not.

  Riva had introduced Dante and was offering to show Constance to her room, suggesting a bath and a rest, perhaps a drink or a meal on a tray. It might have been an effort to dispose of the other woman long enough to adjust to her presence. Constance seemed to think so.

  “There is no need whatever for you to exert yourself for me,” the Sicilian woman said. “I’m sure Noel will show me where I am to sleep.”

  The sultry tone of her voice made the words suggestive. Catching the quick glance Riva sent him, Noel felt the heat of a flush and swore under his breath. He should have known Constance would not be able to resist making trouble. Pietro, sensitive to the undercurrents in the air, began to whine again, rubbing one eye with his fist.

  Constance went on. “But if you would be helpful, Madame Staulet, perhaps someone could be found to look after Coralie and Pietro. Travel is so difficult for children—the waiting, the sitting still so long. They have had a hard day.”

  Dante Romoli spoke up, his face alight. “I volunteer. They might like a swim to work out the fidgets. I promise to watch them like a hawk.”

  The children’s mother frowned doubtfully. “I had a nursemaid in mind.”

  “I make an excellent nursemaid. At least temporarily.”

  Riva intervened with a smile. “It’s perfectly true; he does. Dante has at least twenty honorary nieces and nephews, the children of friends, who adore him. Your son and daughter will be quite safe.”

  Constance pursed her lips, her gaze measuring as she looked at Dante. Finally she said, “I suppose it will be all right.”

  “Good,” Riva said. “While Dante is watching them, I’ll see if a woman can be found to take charge during your stay.”

  “I’ll try to find their swimsuits, then. If Noel will take me to their rooms…?” Constance looked at her former husband from under her lashes.

  The impulse to refuse was strong inside Noel; still, it would be best to set things straight between Constance and himself as soon as possible. He gave his son to Dante and let Riva take Coralie’s hand, then turned toward the stairs rising at the back of the long hall. “This way.”

  They mounted the curving treads with the Oriental runner in silence. He showed Constance to one of the bedrooms at the front of the house for the children and indicated th
at her own would be across the hall.

  “Where do you sleep?” she asked, her lips curved in a provocative smile.

  “Downstairs. My father’s old room off the library.”

  “You mean you displaced your stepmother? What terrible manners.”

  His face tightened. “Her room is up here next to yours, as a matter of fact.”

  “She and your father had separate bedrooms, then? How civilized, though I’m sure I can’t blame her. How many years’ difference was there between them?”

  She was baiting him and he knew it. “Thirty. Why?”

  “She’s such a very young widow. How is it that you haven’t told her you’re madly in love with her and swept her to the altar?”

  “Is that what you’ve been expecting?”

  “For these six months and more.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.” His voice was dry.

  “What can be holding you back? Surely it cannot be respect? I thought mourning was out of fashion, that grief was in bad taste.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Did I? The lovely Riva is certainly not wearing black.”

  “We won’t talk about Riva.”

  She stared at him with a twisted smile. “You never did, did you, my love? The woman ruined my marriage, but I was never allowed to discuss her, and I still must never cast the least little slur on her name.”

  “There is no slur possible. She had nothing to do with the break between us.”

  “Oh, please! You may play the fool, but I am not one.” She swung away from him with her silk scarf swirling around her and went to stand at the window.

  He frowned. Sympathy for an ex-wife was an inconvenient emotion. Constance had never been able to accept the fact that he cared more for his freedom than for her title or access to her body. She could only explain it to herself by making some big dramatic triangle out of it.

  “No act or deed of Riva’s persuaded me to leave you,” he said. “She learned about it Only when it was over.”